Inkjet printers are fluid-ejection devices that form images, such as graphics, text, and the like, on media by ejecting ink or another fluid on the media. While such printers are common in home and office environments, large-scale inkjet printers are becoming common in more industrial or commercial applications. Large-scale inkjet printers are typically designed to operate hours or even days at a time without user interaction, to complete large print jobs. For example, printing the address label on millions of magazines to be sent to subscribers is one type of application that is commonly used with large-scale inkjet printers.
Some types of large-scale inkjet printers can print with only one color of ink at a time. If the same inkjet printer is then needed to be used to print with a different color of ink, a time-consuming and user-involving cleaning or flushing process may have to be undertaken to completely remove the old color of ink so that the old color of ink does not contaminate image formation on media using the new color of ink. In particular, all the components of the inkjet printer that come into contact with ink, which are referred to as the “wet components” of the printer, may have to be cleaned or flushed before using the new color of ink. For this and other reasons, there is a need for the present invention.